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Nine new international immersive documentary projects have been selected for CPH:DOX’s talent development and training programme CPH:LAB. The participants will go through an intense development phase and be ready to present their prototypes at CPH:DOX 2024, which takes place in Copenhagen March 13-24, 2024.

Organised by Flanders Image, a division of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), CONNEXT 2023 will unveil an array of Flemish doc projects, works in progress and screenings in Antwerp, 9-10 October. Additionally, Oscar nominee and Cannes laureate Lukas Dhont will curate The Future Five in which five emerging filmmaking talents are introduced to the national and international professionals in attendance.

Doc filmmaker and artist Wang Bing, Guest of Honour at IDFA 2023, will be celebrated with a retrospective of his work as well as a personally curated Top 10 which comprises a “contemplative journey into contemporary Chinese cinema.” IDFA Lifetime Achievement award-winner Peter Greenaway will also be honoured with a retrospective programme. The 36th edition of IDFA takes place from November 8 to 19 2023.

This year’s programme of 25 premiere feature films, featuring 50 UK-wide events, represents a wide range of music genres, including rock, punk, rap, folk, dance, black metal, drone metal, bossa nova, jazz, avant garde and more. Audiences will “journey around the world from Basel to Brazil, Atlanta to Australia, Seattle to Swansea,” write organisers. Screenings will take place across 10 UK cities, 26 Oct to November 11.

The Biarritz-based festival and market has launched a call for documentary projects for its International Pitch session organized for FIPADOC Industry Days, running January 22 to 25 2024. During the event 24 documentary project teams will be looking for new partners. A number of cash and in-kind prizes will be up for grabs. The application deadline is November 2 2023.

Nirit Peled with ‘(this conversation is) Off the record’ and Constant Dullaart and Piotr Winiewicz with ‘William Quail's Pyramid’ are named as 2023 grant recipients. “Both projects critically examine the impact of AI as it emerges and evolves within society, each taking a distinct and unique approach,” comment the Film Fund and IDFA DocLab.

Leipzig’s DOK Industry programme, announced September 14, will open October 9 with a panel titled Displaced by Dictatorship and War: Belarusian Independent Filmmakers in Europe, designed to bring “renewed attention to exiled Belarusian documentary filmmakers amid the country’s escalating political climate and curbs on (artistic) freedom.” DOK Industry runs 9-13 Oct onsite during the upcoming DOK Leipzig festival (8-15 October).

The project development lab will take place between October 19 and 25 during Nebulae, the industry programme of Doclisboa (Lisbon, 19-29 October). This year, 354 projects from 20 Ibero-American countries and Italy applied and 15 were selected (12 film projects and three research and criticism projects). Ten countries are represented and the projects are all at different stages of production.

This year’s Ji.hlava IDFF is primarily dedicated to women, the Czech festival announced September 13, with topics such as female physicality and sexuality, ageing, friendship, childbirth, coming to terms with motherhood, sexual violence, and the effort to break free from gender roles running through the programme. Special guests include Claire Simon and Naomi Kawase. The festival also presents a Marguerite Duras retrospective.

The AJB DOC Main Award went to When Spring Came to Bucha by Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz. The Al Jazeera Balkans Program Jury Award was presented to Nick Read and Ayse Toprak for My Name is Happy. Special Recognition Awards went to Pure Unknown, by Valentina Cicogna and Mattia Colombo, and Flotation, directed by Alesandra Tatić and Eluned Zoe Aiano.